Sighting in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, February 17, 1980

Three witnesses were in a house when one of them, the first witness, noticed an orange glow at night for a few seconds through the frosted glass of a small window by an indoor staircase. Frightened, they called a second witness to come and see. The second witness went around the house looking for the phenomenon on the ground. Meanwhile, the first witness and a third one looked out of a window and saw, in the sky to the north, a phenomenon made up of two red lights and a flashing white light. They then pointed it out to the second witness. No particular noise was heard. The witnesses then searched the ground around the house and found marks that struck them as suspicious: two almost identical impressions in a pile of sand in front of the house. The gendarmerie was informed the same evening and came to the scene.

The GEIPAN distinguished two phases. The light in the sky was probably an aircraft on approach to Avignon-Caumont airport: the flashing white light was an anti-collision light, which the second witness himself likened to the flashing lights of aircraft, and the two red or pale orange lights were probably landing lights seen from behind. The zigzag impression may come from a perceptual illusion (the autokinetic effect) or from several lights being visible intermittently. There is no link to establish with the initial glow: the first witness's fright, passed on to the others, led them to connect the two observations. This phase was classified B.

The initial glow and the ground marks are consistent with phenomena occurring entirely on the ground. Explaining them goes beyond the GEIPAN's own remit, so this phase was classified C. The GEIPAN nevertheless put forward a hypothesis, without claiming a definitive explanation: the marks resemble the imprints a mason's bucket would leave in loose sand, and someone taking sand at night with engine and lights off could have caused the glow. The light could also have come from outside the property, unrelated to the marks.